"The Wicker Man" (UK - 1973 - 100 minutes - rated R)
Sunday, August 30, 2020 @ 7 pm Pacific Time
*Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__4qo289RSz2haqTL7viPwA
Come watch the film with us and discuss it via the chat-box (audience microphones and cameras are disabled during the show).
This film is considered by many to be the finest Horror film ever produced in the UK. Directed by Robin Hardy, it stars Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, and Ingrid Pitt. A puritanical police sergeant travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He finds himself at odds with the inhabitants' Pagan way of life--and their insistence that no such girl ever existed.
We are very excited to be able to present this film in the "Extended Version," which has only been released on a long-out-of-print limited-edition DVD. Not to be confused with the commonly-available 94 minute "Final Cut," this version runs 100 minutes and is the closest in existence to the long-lost original director's cut. The version released to theaters in 1973 had been edited down to 88 minutes by the studio, who feared the original moved too slowly. To make matters even worse, the North American distributors inexplicably did a cut of their own, shuffling some of the scenes and making the plot difficult to follow in places. The scenes in the version we're screening have been restored to their proper order and supplemented with formerly-unavailable footage--including the full prologue, set on the mainland. Some of this footage is of a lesser quality than the main body of the film but is still highly watchable.
[*Due to increased security concerns, we now require a simple registration for each show (if you haven't done so already, you can sign up with Zoom for free at https://us02web.zoom.us/signup). When you click on the Zoom Registration Link above, you'll be asked to enter your name and an email address where we can send the direct link to the show, plus a 6-digit passcode for admission. Please do not share your link or passcode with anyone.]